Sunday, April 15, 2012

BlogHer, my publishing network, has asked me to answer another Getting Organized question as part of its year-long Life Well Lived program:

How do you organize paperwork both online and offline?

I'm guessing Not at well as I'd like probably isn't the answer they're looking for. I do try—and there is hope.

When baby chicks are hatched out and raised by a mama hen—as opposed to being purchased from the feed store or mail-ordered from a hatchery—they stay warm and safe by snuggling up underneath her, inside her feathers. I had no idea this was how it worked until Whitey had her chicks back in 2007. It's ingenious—and adorable.

More about both chicks and paperwork below. . .

There's an amazing amount of room underneath a mother hen, which is good because Lokey has ten chicks. I couldn't believe they could all fit under her. You're looking at what you think is simply a chicken sitting around by herself and suddenly there are baby chicks popping out all over.

As the chicks grow and space inside becomes a little tight, the chicks start to pile on and around their mama, managing to organize themselves and all find a comfy spot. That's when the real cuteness begins.

When it comes to organizing paperwork, I rely on the old standby—file cabinets. It's a system that's worked for me for years, as long as I actually file stuff away. But when space becomes tight and stuff starts to pile up, there's nothing cute about it.

As for my digital clutter, I use delicious.com to organize and keep track of my numerous bookmarked links. Being able to add tags to each link and then search through the various categories (gardening, sheep stuff, crafty blogs, cake, etc.) makes going back and finding things really easy.

For more visual bookmarks, I have 56 rapidly filling Pinterest boards, although I should probably spend less time pinning and more time filing.

6 comments:

The baby chicks are MUCH cuter than piles of unfiled papers! :)I have a file cabinet for all the paid bills and I don't have anything to organize online, except for all the blogs I follow and Blogger does that!

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